Land is one of the most widely available natural resources in Ethiopia both in rural and urban areas of the country. However, the country has not adequately utilized the resource due to various reasons.
Land Administration and Rural Land Use Director at Ministry of Agriculture, Tigistu Gebremeskel says although Ethiopia is rich in land resource, it has not used the resources properly.
According to the Director, lack of legal framework, land use policy, adequate skilled manpower, adequate budget, and consistent organizational structure are serious factors which hinder effective use of land resources in Ethiopia. However, it does not mean that the country has not taken actions on improving land resource management. Yet, more effort remains on land management system.
Particularly, Hawassa and Bahir Dar Universities have set good examples by formulating curriculum during the past five years. They provided the curriculum for concerned bodies to use land resource effectively. In this regard, in Benishangul Gumuz State, it is practiced at pilot level and start to produce experts on land management system.
The Ministry has carried out various studies during the past two years in pastoralist areas, especially in Oromia and Afar States. Particularly, in pastoralist areas, the land is held by clans, rather than individuals. Accordingly, close to 2.7 million hectares of land has been apportioned for various clans. This is playing significant role to protect the land, ensure proper usage, use the land as collateral to access loan, and reduce conflict through mediation.
Currently, the country has more than 50 million plots of land which need landownership certificate. Out of these plots, ownership property map or certificates has been issued for 15 million of them. Majority of the plots of land still await issuance of such certificates.
Zemen Haddis (PhD), Senior Agricultural policy Advisor at USAID said that the main objective of the workshop is increasing households’ livelihood, ensuring women’s landownership, empowering decision making process, encouraging land policy system, and the like.
According to Zemen, lack of capacity building system, stakeholder’s integration, research, access to credit service and technology are serious challenges which impede proper use of land resources in Ethiopia so far.
As to him, the participation of women in decision making at household level has been increasing from ten percent to more than 40 percent during the past ten years. However, women still lag behind in terms of participating in overall development activities that ensure equal shares with men. As part of this, the ministry has been taking many activities during the past decade. Among the activities, increasing number of developmental partners, identifying the real pastoralist areas and encouraging discussion with community are fruitful.
Meanwhile, many parts of the country, especially in pastoralist area, sporadic conflict among different clans is common in pastoralist areas as a result of competition over grazing land. However, the USAID project will play crucial role to solve the problem through using modern system of land use to produce different crops.
Troy Beckman, Development Outreach and Communication Specialist at USAID on his part said that the main objective of the workshop is improving the livelihood of Ethiopian society through effective use of land resource across the nation. To realize this, stakeholders bring together and work hard.
According to Troy, the USAID has been providing different training, technical support, and experts so as to improve society’s livelihoods sustainably.
On the other hand, starting work together in high level government organs, increasing developmental partners and government commitment is good chance in Ethiopia that hopeful to realizing the current workshop in the actual period.
“People should ask more information, working together, solve the problem through discussion and the like expected from societies which help to succeed the project effectively all over Ethiopia,’’ Troy noted.
The Ethiopian Herald November16, 2019
BY MESERET BEHAILU
